The Foolish Bookworm of the Aristocratic Boys’ School chapter 103.2

Part 2

On the other side of the sky, a cheetah’s hoarse, exhausted roars shook the villa.

A scream, then a zap.

It wasn’t until an electric baton was thrown onto the cage that Lin Jinghang rubbed his wrist and stood up. “Bring another one.”

Inside the iron cage, the cheetah lay prone on all fours. The wound on its stomach looked like a mouth, opening and closing in time with its rapid breathing, blood gushing out.

The butler hesitated for a few seconds before responding, “Yes, Young Master.”

Although he wasn’t an animal rights activist, seeing this scene made him feel repulsed.

Animals weren’t humans; how could they tell if a person was in a good mood? It had only approached wanting to play, surely it didn’t deserve to be tortured like this.

How had the Young Master become like this?

Although Lin Jinghang wasn’t exactly a docile child when he first returned home, he had been much more normal than this.

Now, it was like… he had gone mad. You never knew when he would suddenly become unhappy, or what terrible things he would do when he was.

Doubts aside, he carried out Lin Jinghang’s orders. After calling to have someone bring another cheetah, the butler remembered Lin Jinghang liked to drink. He went to the wine cabinet to retrieve some decent bottles, hoping to help calm his mood.

Who knew that as soon as he reached the second floor, he would hear shouting.

“He said it like that at the time, how could I have reacted fast enough to refute him? Now everyone thinks putting the ice bucket on the door was my idea. You tell me what to do.”

A mature voice on the other end of the phone asked in confusion, “It wasn’t your idea?”

It was the voice of Wang Sichen’s secretary. This secretary used to speak often with Wang Allen, so the butler was familiar with him.

Lin Jinghang: “Of course it wasn’t me.”

“Who was it?”

“It was…”

Lin Jinghang faltered. “I forgot. There are so many people in the Student Council, how could I match every face to a name? Besides, the lights were so dim that night, and I was drunk. I couldn’t distinguish who was speaking at all.”

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“Young Master, you were tested,” the secretary said decisively.

“Tested?”

“The students at Floriman Academy are sharp.”

“They have to suck up to you because of the Senator, but for various reasons, they also don’t want to offend Wen Rong. So they offered you this harmless suggestion. It doesn’t truly hurt Wen Rong, and it satisfies your request.”

He continued, “Actually, no matter how you look at it, you shouldn’t have agreed to such a boring trick. By agreeing, you let them figure out… your level.”

“What level?”

The secretary fell silent, likely not wanting to be too blunt, and changed his phrasing. “It makes them feel you are easily fooled.”

“Fuck your mother! I’m going to kill them.”

“Calm down. Let’s review what happened in class.”

“I don’t want to recall—”

The secretary interrupted him. “Next time you encounter something like this, do you know how to handle it?”

Lin Jinghang: “…”

Secretary: “In public opinion, the biggest taboo is letting the opponent strike first. From Wen Rong’s perspective, he had no idea if you did it, but the moment he opened his mouth, he pinned the blame on you. He clearly wanted to focus the target on you.”

Lin Jinghang opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. He could only kick over the trash can, letting out a roar of rage.

After roaring and calming down, he said, “Right, he said later that he was targeting me.”

“Then he offered two paths, and blocked one of them, forcing you to follow his words and be made an example of.”

“I didn’t have any other choice.”

“You had no choice because you are still trapped in his trap. Specifically saying ‘first,’ ‘second’… was to prevent you from thinking of a ‘third.'”

“What third? I guarantee a second project seminar will be held?”

“Why are you still…”

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The secretary sighed. “Young Master, the project seminar cannot be held a second time.”

“Then aren’t you just like me? You didn’t come up with a third way either.”

A sharp intake of breath came from the other end of the phone. “Young Master, the project seminar can be postponed.”

Lin Jinghang’s eyes lit up. “Right, it can be postponed.”

“Ha! You’re right, it can be postponed. Why didn’t I think of that at the time?”

The secretary didn’t answer. Lin Jinghang held his forehead, spinning in a circle, almost jumping for joy. “I just need to postpone the seminar until after I become Student Council President. Then I’ll revoke the Yellow Cards for these Student Council people and approve all their projects…”

“Do not approve all of them.”

One could hear the panic in the secretary’s voice.

“How can I not? They are all under my protection.”

“A large part of the reason Wen Rong could push for the project seminar was that the students were tired of unfairness. If you take office and immediately approve all the Student Council’s projects, it will be too obvious, and others will be dissatisfied.”

“Then I’ll approve others’ projects too?”

“…”

The air was still for a moment.

The secretary spoke earnestly, “The resources given by the school are limited; it’s impossible to satisfy everyone.”

“And… even if they are your subordinates, you need to show favoritism to keep them under control. Moreover, you don’t understand these people under you yet.”

Lin Jinghang: “What do you mean?”

The secretary took another deep breath. “You first need to distinguish who is truly following you and who is falsely flattering you.”

“I suggest you only approve the projects of those who truly follow you. Let these people know you treat them well, and let the others know that not following you will bear no good fruit.”

Lin Jinghang finally understood.

So there were so many nuances!

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He had always felt this ordinary world, which didn’t even have wars, couldn’t compare to the apocalypse, but it turned out the twists and turns were no less complex.

“Alright, we’ll do it that way.”

“Mn, I have a meeting coming up. If Young Master has other—”

Lin Jinghang exclaimed, “What meeting? Call the Principal immediately and tell him to postpone the project seminar.”

“…”

Lin Jinghang spun around again, letting out a troubled hiss, then asked, “How will I know who really wants to follow me and who is fooling me?”

The butler didn’t dare listen past this point. The silence on the other end of the phone gave him a bad feeling.

Moreover, he had stayed on the stairs too long; he could easily be discovered eavesdropping.

The butler carefully went downstairs, pretending he knew nothing, and arranged for the servants to prepare the drinks for the evening.

While he was busy, a servant came over to ask what to do about the tennis court next to the villa.

There was a tennis court next to the villa that Shi Ye had built. Every morning at 5 AM, the thwack-thwack of balls was so loud that Lin Jinghang, who drank late into the night, couldn’t sleep.

So this morning, Lin Jinghang had given the order to clear the people out of the tennis court.

The president of the Tennis Club was Shi Ye. To put it bluntly, this villa was also Shi Ye’s; Lin Jinghang moving in was purely a case of the magpie occupying the dove’s nest. How could they dare tell Shi Ye and the Tennis Club members not to come for training?

“What should we do? If we don’t handle it well, the Young Master will definitely lose his temper again.”

The butler sighed. What could he do?

At least in his view, if the Young Master himself couldn’t make Shi Ye and the Tennis Club leave, pushing this demand onto them—who had even less status—was simply making things difficult for them.

With all these difficulties, the butler actually felt a bit nostalgic for Wang Allen.

At least he was a child raised by the Wang family from a young age. He had some sense in these matters and wouldn’t actively provoke a big shot from a background like Shi Ye’s.

“Go try tomorrow morning in the Young Master’s name.”

The servant nodded hesitantly and went to the tennis court early the next morning as instructed.

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Not seeing Shi Ye, the servant breathed a sigh of relief. But she didn’t know that the Tennis Club members had lived freely in Shi Ye’s villa before. After Shi Ye moved out, he had intended to use the villa as the club’s activity room. However, once Lin Jinghang arrived, not only did that plan fall through, but they were now being “chased” away. Resentment had been building up.

Learning that Lin Jinghang wanted to clear them out, their tempers flared one by one. They hit the balls harder, the impact sounding even louder.

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